Clairnote: An alternative music notation system • Hacker News Board

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#41

Post by wl » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:23 PM UTC

scrozier wrote: post #27

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, English isn't hard to learn if you grew up with it either, but it's still three languages in a trenchcoat with a ton of weird things. I mean, pronounce all of these words that have the same combinations of the letters "ough": though, through, rough, cough, thought, bough, plough, ought and borough. The notation is the same, but it's clearly not adequate to express the difference between pronunciation. If you…

This isn't a parallel argument. There are no ambiguities in standard musical notation that parallel the pronunciation issue you point out in English. Further, there are no non-traditional-music-notation "speakers" trying to learn musical notation. One is (almost) always learning it anew, unless perhaps you're coming at it from a different notation system, which is a different discussion.

Intervals are ambiguous on the staff in the traditional system. They're disambiguated by reference to the clef and key signature. The whole point of this new system is to remove that ambiguity so you don't constantly have to keep the clef and key signature in mind when analyzing intervals.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#42

Post by michelpp » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

lc9er wrote: post #2

This is interesting. Growing up, I had 8 years of music theory, so reading standard notation is second nature. In high school and later on in rock/metal bands, I never actually used it. It was far more common to use guitar tablature (even though I was the drummer). Tab is more of a short-hand system, giving you fret markings and measures, but usually omitting rhythmic notation. To me, this system is actually more con…

> In high school and later on in rock/metal bands, I never actually used it. It was far more common to use guitar tablature

I know you know this, but I'd like to point out for others that Tab is specific to the guitar family (basses, ukulele, etc) it does not work for any other kind of instrument.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#43

Post by CuriouslyC » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

lc9er wrote: post #2

This is interesting. Growing up, I had 8 years of music theory, so reading standard notation is second nature. In high school and later on in rock/metal bands, I never actually used it. It was far more common to use guitar tablature (even though I was the drummer). Tab is more of a short-hand system, giving you fret markings and measures, but usually omitting rhythmic notation. To me, this system is actually more con…

Tabs are so much better than old school sheet music for guitar (drum sheet music I don't mind), maybe some people want to figure out their own fretting but I'm fine being spoon fed (even being a finger style weirdo).

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#44

Post by olau » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:39 PM UTC

scrozier wrote: post #15

Interesting, well thought out, and well-presented. Just not sure that it solves a problem. It certainly isn't radically easier to learn than traditional notation. And despite other comments here, huge numbers of young people learn traditional notation all the time, with little stress. Maybe, as is true with spoken languages, it becomes harder to learn musical notation as we get older? All the "problems" that this not…

Well, it says it fixes visual representation of intervals and huge inconsistencies between how similar notes are notated.

Meaning new students would have a much easier time learning naming notes and where they are - in my experience the typical child that has taken lessons for a couple of years is still scarcely capable of naming notes outside perhaps the 6-10 they're most comfortably with. Accidentals do not help.

And everyone would benefit from visual support for the intervals.

Here's an anecdote: I have been playing piano for many years but recently discovered, because my son is learning to play cello, that I have trouble taking his cello scores and playing them with my right hand. I can play bass clefs no problem in piano music with my right hand, but my brain is apparently trained to do the translation in that context. Without it, I have to focus to not accidentally read his single system scores as a G clef.

Similarly, I've seen his teacher, a cellist giving concerts, get temporarily confused over a G-clef violin score.

Yes, these are not huge problems, but I'm personally willing to believe we could have something better.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#45

Post by blagie » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

InitialLastName wrote: post #7

At a glance, this is a neat concept, but doesn't seem to come at the problem from the perspective of the most common users of music notation (experienced musicians); rather, it appears to have been written by somebody who was frustrated by trying to learn to read music. For experienced musicians, the priorities are a) legibility for sight-reading and transcription (which this system, with indistinguishable sitting/ha…

The vast majority of users of music notation are amateurs, and being more friendly to amateurs would mean even more users.

The vast majority of decision-makers are experienced users with a vested interest in the status quo.

The issue is very similar to why corporate systems have such horrible user interfaces. The people making the decisions in IT aren't the normal users of the system. IT cares about features, integrations, and high-level analytics. Employees care to be able to sanely input their time sheets, file an expense report, or buy a stapler.

I'd like a system simple enough to use by all the kids in my local elementary school music class, much more than I care about what happens in the local orchestra.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#46

Post by karmakaze » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

[I don't read music.] From stories/videos I've watched on the topic, musician's don't so much read absolute notes but notes of a scale. A trained one knows their scales and can represent them with the letters A-G once each, using sharps or flats as necessary. I'd also expect them to know exactly where each note name/sharp/flat is on the instrument they play.

There's also an affinity for piano being a sort-of reference instrument pertaining to mapping of scales as it has the least idiosyncratic placement of notes compared to other instruments.

What about a scale that has lines for the white keys of the piano and larger spaces where black keys appear would be 1:1 with piano, but there would be too high a density of lines.

So how about we make the black keys the lines and we can have single spaces for single white keys and double spaces where two white keys intervene the black ones? That almost makes sense as the lines are black and the page/spaces are white.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#47

Post by TremendousJudge » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

iainmerrick wrote: post #28

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the massive entrenched investment At first I thought it would be like switching from Facebook to Mastodon. But if there is automatic translation software, it wouldn't actually be as hard -- you can just wear your own Clairnote lenses when you want, without bothering the other musicians. > The difference between "sitting just above the line" and "sitting on the line" is quite subtle. Agreed. It seems worth using dif…

That's a good point; if/when all the scores are fully electronic, they could easily be transcribed automatically. Anyone know how close we are to that? I feel like I'm seeing many more professional classical musicians using iPads rather than paper scores, but I don't know if they're just looking at scanned scores, or something like MIDI that can be freely transliterated.

We are very, very far away from that. To get a feel of what scorewriter software is like nowadays, Tantacrul's videos[0] on the subject of UI are very good at showing what the state of the art is. On one of his videos he shows that the best score engraving can only be achieved by using a closed source, now-unsupported command line program from the 80s called Score[1]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKx1wnXClcI [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCORE_(software)

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#48

Post by bentcorner » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

abecedarius wrote: post #39

> In traditional music notation notes an octave apart do not resemble each other. This is what I'd emphasize. To sight read, the mapping from sign to note has to be so automatic it's unconscious. In standard notation this mapping looks different at every one of the middle four octaves, which nearly quadruples the size of the "multiplication table" you're installing in memory. Since your exposure in practice to the fu…

At least for me as a very casual musician, I instinctively know how to map all the notes on the staff and maybe 2/2.5 lines above/below. Most sheet music uses the octave above/below notation when necessary too, so it's not common (for me) to need more than that.

When I was younger and played more complex pieces, my teacher and I would sometimes write down notes that were way out there just to help things along.

Personally at first glance this notation is jarring to read, and I don't know if it would make sense investing in learning this when literally everything else I've seen and own is traditionally notated. Where I find challenge in music is not understanding notes quickly enough, it's my physical mechanics, memory, and expressiveness.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#49

Post by TremendousJudge » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:51 PM UTC

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #22

scrozier wrote: post #15

Interesting, well thought out, and well-presented. Just not sure that it solves a problem. It certainly isn't radically easier to learn than traditional notation. And despite other comments here, huge numbers of young people learn traditional notation all the time, with little stress. Maybe, as is true with spoken languages, it becomes harder to learn musical notation as we get older? All the "problems" that this not…

Huge numbers of young people learn traditional music notation all the time, yes, but I wouldn't say with little stress. Music notation evolved much like English, and much like English it's widely recognized to be full of kludges and unnatural constructions. And similarly, changing it would resemble switching to Esperanto.

To add to your point, many people already use other systems. Tablatures are very, very common for guitar. Lead sheets are used in jazz, and they do away with many of the problems of regular notation (notably, the legibility of chords, and different clefs) by only using it for melodies. In a way, traditional music notation is really only used in classical music. And they're never ever going to adopt another system. The people who wanted another system have already split off.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#50

Post by scrozier » Wed, May 04, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

olau wrote: post #44

scrozier wrote: post #15

Interesting, well thought out, and well-presented. Just not sure that it solves a problem. It certainly isn't radically easier to learn than traditional notation. And despite other comments here, huge numbers of young people learn traditional notation all the time, with little stress. Maybe, as is true with spoken languages, it becomes harder to learn musical notation as we get older? All the "problems" that this not…

Well, it says it fixes visual representation of intervals and huge inconsistencies between how similar notes are notated. Meaning new students would have a much easier time learning naming notes and where they are - in my experience the typical child that has taken lessons for a couple of years is still scarcely capable of naming notes outside perhaps the 6-10 they're most comfortably with. Accidentals do not help. A…

Good points. I haven't thought a lot about it, but I still don't see how this new system is radically easier to learn. Looks like I have to be concerned with notes partially on lines, an irregular staff, two notes occupying the same "space" on the staff, etc. Then there are clefs with numbers...now I have to remember what "number" octave I'm in. And for piano, you lose the white key/black key distinction, which is obvious with accidentals in traditional notation. (This is specific to piano, and maybe not terrible.) I just don't see any tremendous reduction in cognitive load.